Yes . . . I can see it . . . like a fragment of a memory . . .
Siris fell still. That seemed to make some of the daerils wary, for they drew back. Others still rampaged toward him, fighting.
Isa fell. He could hear her grunt, could see new blood in the stream, could feel the splash of water against his legs as she collapsed.
The daerils closed on him.
He shut his eyes.
There.
His arms moved, raising the sword as if by their own volition. In his youth, he’d trained his body to follow the instincts of a soldier, performing practice attacks, jabs, and stances until they were second nature. He was familiar with fighting by instinct.
He just had no idea where these particular instincts came from.
He snapped his eyes open and spun in a complex sword kata, feet moving quietly in the water. He seemed to dance with the river itself. His blade struck seven times in rapid succession, each blow precise, each move exact. When he stopped, he held the Infinity Blade before him in a calm, two-handed grip. The river flowed at his feet.
Seven daerilic corpses floated away.
He took a deep breath, as if coming awake after a long sleep, then turned-absently noting his shield, which he’d dropped sometime during the process.
What had that been? The rhythm of the attacks seemed so familiar. The seven strikes had come as if this particular fight-with each daeril in its place-was something he’d practiced time and time again.
The Infinity Blade? he wondered. Did those reflexes come from the sword?
Isa.
He cursed, dropping the weapon, grabbing her from the nearby water. She had a gut wound, a bad one, and the chill water washed the blood from it. Her eyes were still open, still moving, but her skin was pale, her lips trembling.
“I didn’t . . .” she said, “. . . when I said you had to fight seven, I didn’t actually expect you to do it. . . .”
“Here,” Siris said, pulling the ring off his finger and shoving it onto hers. “Use the ring. Heal yourself.”
“I can’t . . .”
“You can. It’s easy. You can sense it. See? Use it. You don’t even have to worry about growing a beard.”
“How can you not know?” she whispered.
“Know what?”
“I can’t use this, Siris. It doesn’t work that way. It-”
“Oh my, oh my, oh my,” a voice said.
Siris looked up. The robed figure who had been cowering behind the rocks had un-cowered his way up the bank to inspect his saviors. His hood had fallen back, and there wasn’t a face in there.
Or . . . well, not a human face. Not even a living face. Two eyes like blue gemstones regarded him from their place set in a head carved from wood. There was no mouth, though the spindly thing spoke. “That is not good, not good, not good.”
“Can you help?” Siris asked desperately.
“Must I?”
“Yes!”
“Bring her over then, out of the water, out of the water. Yes, yes. Something metal, let us see, and thread I should imagine . . .”
Siris lifted Isa and splashed through the water to the bank, watered-down blood seeping out of the wound. He set her on the rocky bank as the creature-a golem of some sort-shucked its robe, revealing a puppetlike body of thin wood.
Bamboo, Siris thought. It’s made of bamboo.
“Yes, yes,” the golem said, inspecting the wound with thin fingers. “Your shield. I need your shield.”
Siris fetched it. What else could he do? It didn’t seem the time to ask questions. When he returned with the wet shield, the creature was absently reaching out to touch its fallen robe. Its hand, then arm, unraveled.
Siris froze. The creature’s body was turning to thread, the transformation running up its arm.
“Excellent, excellent,” the creature said, waving with the hand that was still wooden. “Bring it, please. Please, yes.”
Siris knelt, setting the shield beside Isa. She was still breathing, but had her eyes closed. She looked so pale.
The creature touched the shield with its wooden hand, and that hand fused to the steel, transforming and becoming metal. This transformation ran up its other arm, turning half of its body to metal.
Then the creature broke its arm free, splintering its entire body. The fracture was precise, and from the heap of metal emerged a smaller version of the creature, perhaps one foot tall, with one half of its body made of bunched up thread and the other half made of slender, silvery steel.
It walked up and prodded Isa’s wound with fingers that were now very fine, like needles. It cut away the clothing near the gash-its fingers were sharp on one side.
“Clean wound,” it said, the voice now much softer. “Cut very sharply. Good, but yes, much work to do. Must be quick! Lots of blood. Not good, not good.”
The creature pushed its way into the wound, burying its arms-one of silvery metal, the other a pile of thread that moved like muscles-into her abdomen. The creature began to hum, using one spindly finger like a needle, threading part of its own body through and beginning to sew on the wound.
“It’s going to be all right,” Siris said to Isa. I think. I hope.
“Too much of a coincidence,” she whispered.
“Hush,” he said. “Don’t-”
She opened her eyes. “It was following us. That thing, whatever it . . .” She grimaced in pain and took a few panting breaths. “It must have been followed us, Siris. That’s why it fell into the ambush. It didn’t catch that we’d split off to go the long way around.”
Siris looked at the creature, which was working quickly, humming to itself. In just a few minutes, it finished with its work on Isa’s innards and moved to sewing up her outer gash. Its fingers were a blur, and the stitches it made incredibly tight and small. It pulled the final stitch tight, then tied it off and snipped.
Isa was unconscious by then, but still breathing. Siris felt helpless. Why had she refused to use the healing ring? He slipped it from her finger. Perhaps she’d just been addled by the wound, the fight. If she came to . . . when she came to . . . then she could use it.
“Thank you, creature,” he said.
“Hmmm. I obey, as instructed.” The creature inspected its handiwork, then fell backward.
Siris started as the creature melded into the rock behind it, its body transforming to match the stone. A second later, a larger version of it-five feet tall now-ripped free of the ground, now made of river rocks and mud. He could still see its former body where it had melded into the large stone at the thing’s chest.
It opened gemstone eyes in a vaguely head-shaped stone on its shoulders, and when it stepped, rocks ground against one another. It picked up the robe.
“What are you?” Siris asked.
“TEL,” the creature said. “Transubstantive Entity, Lower-class.”
“And were you following me?”
“. . . Yes.”
“You serve one of the Deathless, don’t you?”
Another pause. “I do.”
“Which one?”
“I have been commanded not to respond to that question,” TEL said happily. “Oh my. This is probably not a good place to be having a dialogue. I do believe that other bands of Q.I.P.-mutants may inhabit the area.”
Siris looked down at the unconscious Isa. Moving her didn’t seem to be a good idea, but remaining in this place-where the sounds of battle might have drawn attention-was a worse one. Siris moved to pick her up.
“If I may suggest,” TEL said, “with a substance of stone, I am quite well equipped to carry large burdens without growing fatigued. If you would command me . . . ?”
“Uh, pick her up.”
“Excellent,” TEL said, kneeling down and easily lifting Isa. “I might suggest that you fetch the sword, as I have been commanded not to touch that particular item.” He walked off, humming to himself.
Siris shook his head, walking out into the river and retrieving the Infinity Bl
ade. He summoned his shield to him, then-after a moment of hesitation-ran off to get the horse and their supplies.
“I can’t answer that question,” TEL said happily. “I have been instructed not to speak on the immortality of the Deathless or how they obtained their status.”
“Well what can you tell me?” Siris asked with exasperation.
“Many things!” TEL said. He walked beside Siris, still carrying Isa. She was unconscious, but TEL seemed to be capable of carrying her with a much smoother gait than Siris could manage, so he tried not to worry too much.
The foothills of the mountains still rose on either side of them, the sky blurry with a haze that occasionally dropped a fine misting rain. The stream at the center of the valley had grown in size until it was now truly a river, though they didn’t travel directly along it. He hoped that following a harder trail might divert them from trouble.
“Indeed,” TEL continued. “My knowledge is wide and varied. I can explain why the sky is blue, for example. Or I can list the ingredients in lentil soup. I can tell you what time it is in Loher’s Depths right at this moment. I can explain why-”
“What’s a ‘Cue Eye Pee’?” Siris cut in. “The deadmind at the God King’s palace spoke of something like that when it attuned me to one of these rings. You mentioned it again, when talking about those daerils.”
“Q.I.P.,” TEL said. “Quantum Identity Pattern. The individual quantum signature inherent in every sentient being, as related to his or her ancestors. It is similar to, but completely separate from, a person’s physical DNA.”
“Their what?”
“I believe,” TEL said, “that you lack the proper scientific understanding for this conversation to proceed with specific details. A simpler explanation is in order. Your Q.I.P. is what you might call your soul. Yours is individual to you, but is separate from your physical form.”
“And it’s related to my ancestors?”
“Indeed,” TEL said. “A person’s descendants will have a Q.I.P.-a soul-that manifests their parentage.”
“So this sword drains souls,” Siris said. “And it needs to drain enough of them from my . . . my bloodline, is it? From my bloodline before its powers manifest.”
“That is an extremely simplified way of explaining it,” TEL said, sounding displeased. “It speaks nothing of Q.I.P. alignment-indeed, it speaks nothing of science at all! But for an ignorant peasant, it will do.”
“The God King was hunting my family,” Siris said, mostly to himself. “He wanted my bloodline specifically. He baited us, created the idea of Sacrifices so that we’d come to him and die by his sword. But what is it about my family that is special?”
“I’m afraid I cannot answer that question, as it would conflict with my orders.”
“I didn’t mean it for you,” Siris said, though he was interested to hear that TEL had been ordered not to speak of Siris’s family specifically. It confirmed a growing suspicion he had that TEL had been sent by the God King to spy on Siris.
Every step I go, I’m surrounded by people who would betray me if given half a chance. That made him worry again about Isa. He checked the horizon; the sun was nearly down. Time to set up camp.
He chose the location as best he could. He found a place where some fallen leaves made the ground soft. He spread out Isa’s coat-which he’d fetched from the river-to catch a few last rays of sunlight and hopefully dry off.
TEL set her down in a nook beside some rocks. Siris dealt with the horse-the thing only managed to get one good bite in-and brought back the saddle blanket for Isa. He knelt beside her, touching her hand. It was clammy and frigid. “She’s so cold.”
“Indeed,” TEL said, settling down his rock body. He leaned back against some of the bamboo, and the grain of the wood spread across the stones of his shoulders. His body collapsed, the stones becoming chunks of wood, and the puppetlike wooden version of TEL broke from the center of one, cracking out of it like a chicken from an egg.
“Flesh bodies are notoriously poor at dealing with extremes in temperature,” TEL said, shaking his head as if at the shame of it. “She will need warmth for the night, or she will likely not survive.”
Siris looked at the unconscious Isa. Maybe if he held her . . .
“A fire would be preferable,” TEL added, “particularly with this dampness.” The golem sounded amused.
“Right. Of course.” Siris could make a fire, couldn’t he? He gathered some wood, but everything was sodden to its innards. He dug in the saddlebags-they were crafted in a way to keep the water out-and came up with some tinder and straw.
An hour of frustration later, he still didn’t have any fire. He could get something started, but the wood around him was just too wet, and the occasional drizzle didn’t help either, though he’d created shelter as best he could by draping a blanket on some bamboo stalks over the fire.
He knelt in frustration over the makeshift firepit, feeling completely useless. TEL sat to the side, silent and motionless, like a wooden statue. TEL didn’t seem to mind the rain-and had explained, regretfully, that he had no skill in fire building. It wasn’t “part of his designated parameters,” whatever that meant. Neither was fighting, which explained why a creature that could craft a body for itself out of stone had cowered before those daerils.
“I’ve been a fool,” Siris said.
“For what purpose?”
“It wasn’t intentional,” Siris said. “I thought, all those years practicing, that only one thing would matter in my life. Fighting the God King. That was everything. Now, here I am, as helpless as a three-year-old when practically anyone else from Drem’s Maw would have been able to start this fire.”
“That may be true,” TEL said. “However, I doubt seriously that anyone else from your town would have been able to perform the Patterns of True Swordsmanship.”
So he knows what it was I did, Siris thought. He kept that in the back of his mind-along with a healthy distrust of this creature-but didn’t have time to focus on either right now. Was Isa’s breathing more shallow?
He would find a way out of this. There had to be a way. He fished in his pocket, pulling out a handful of rings. He held one of them up, one of the very first he had found. It generated blasts of fire. Like most of the others, it had stopped working soon after he killed the God King.
“TEL, can you tell me why this ring stopped functioning?”
“I would guess,” TEL said, “that it was set for local power, and something disrupted the source of energy.”
“Can I set it to work out here?”
“It depends on the ring,” TEL said. “If you wanted to make it function, you would probably need a similar source of energy to what it creates. Then it could draw on that and transport it to you.”
Siris turned the ring over in his fingers, and-for the first time-noticed something on the inside. A piece was designed to come off, a tiny shard. About half the size of his smallest fingernail, it reminded him of the disc that was paired with the ring that summoned the sword.
Draw on a similar type of energy, he thought, and transport it to you. They were actually very similar, this ring and the transportation one.
“I need something hot,” Siris said.
“Might I note,” TEL said, “if we had something hot, would that not solve our problem in and of itself?”
Siris looked down at the metal disc, then grasped it in his hand. He took a deep breath, putting the ring on his other hand.
TEL stood up. “Oh, oh dear. No, no, no. That is a bad idea, BAD. You don’t have enough heat inside of you to start a fire. I’m sorry. Ninety-eight-point-six, across a hundred and eighty pounds of flesh. Oh, you’ll get a burst of flame, but you’ll be dead at the end of it. Please, do not, do not, do not-”
“Fine,” Siris said, holding up a hand to TEL. “I won’t. But I’ve got to find something warm to use.”
He looked right at the horse.
“Still not hot enough,” TEL noted.
That was almost a pity. But what . . . The steam vents, Siris thought. Isa said they were all around out here. Had he smelled some on the march here from the river?
Dared he leave Isa with this thing? “I command you not to harm her,” he said to TEL.
“I wouldn’t have anyway.”
“Stay here. Watch over her.”
“As you command.”
He almost ordered the thing away. But what good would that do? If it went to report, Siris would be discovered. If it remained here, he might find a way to control it.
Siris turned back the way they’d gone, and started jogging. It was a difficult run. They’d walked some four hours since the river. He’d noticed the scent somewhere about halfway through that time.
It grew dark. He ran on, pushing through patches of bamboo and across open meadows. Was he going the right way? What if . . .
There!
He found the vents tucked up against the side of a rockfall beside a hill. These ones were slim, and didn’t give off much heat-certainly less than he’d hoped. Still, the cracks seemed deep, and the scent of sulfur was strong.
He dropped the metal disc down the one that seemed the deepest, then turned and ran back the way he’d come. A half hour later, puffing-wheezing-he reached the camp, though he’d had to call out to TEL to find it. The sky was nearly pitch black.
Siris ducked under the damp blanket stretched between stands of bamboo. He knelt beside the firepit, pushing the ring farther onto his finger. He held out his hand, palm forward, trying to summon the heat.
He felt nothing at first. Then, with relief, he felt a faint warmth around his finger. The ring made a clicking sound, then buzzed.
A blast of flame erupted from his palm. Its coming was so sudden, he almost jerked back. The fire blazed forward and covered the entire firepit. Steam hissed, wood popped. Siris had to turn his face away.
With focus, he took the heat down from an inferno to a careful bake; better to dry the wood than turn everything in the camp to ash. The heat continued for a good count of a hundred before the ring buzzed, its energy expended.
Infinity Blade: Awakening Page 9
